Facebook Messenger adds “potentially harmful” feature to fight scams

Social media platform, Facebook announced that it’s messaging app ‘Messenger’ will give safety pop ups in chats if the background in which the activity is taking place seems suspicious to the artificial intelligence software. Jay Sullivan, Director of Privacy and Product Safety Management said, “will help millions of people avoid potentially harmful interactions and possible scams without compromising their privacy.”
Impersonation has always been a headache for Facebook. “Too often people interact with someone online they think they know or trust, when it’s really a scammer or imposter,” said Jay. “These accounts can be hard to identify at first and the results can be costly,” he added.

We’re introducing a new privacy-preserving safety feature that will help millions of people avoid potentially harmful interactions and possible scams. https://t.co/ajJagpJjJ9

The scammers are identified on the basis of the account behaviour by the artificial intelligence software. If an account is sending messages in bulk targeting demographics, it is probably a scam. The warning of “potential harmful” pop ups before you reply to such messages.

Messenger will also give “be wary of money” warnings when someone receives a message from the account they aren’t friends with. Also, the app will look for messages that come from accounts impersonating to be a Facebook friend.

Sullivan said, “As we move to end-to-end encryption, we are investing in privacy-preserving tools like this to keep people safe without accessing message content.”

Messenger has been already using software too fight thwart and spam efforts by adults to contact minors they do not appear to know. The company says. “educates people under the age of 18 to be cautious when interacting with an adult they may not know and empowers them to take action before responding to a message.”

This feature is available in android-powered smartphones since March and will be available for the app tailored for ios in the following week.

Recently, Facebook launched video chat service with ‘rooms’ and increased the competition for Zoom during the ongoing pandemic.